I’ve been working with a non-profit organisation recently who have ventured into the world of blogging. They’re set up on Wordpress, the staff are gradually showing each other a few tips and tricks that they’ve learned but when I went through their blog and reviewed some of their posts I thought “Hey, where’s all the tags?”

Where older Wordpress users might have made use of plugins like ‘Ultimate Tag Warrior’ for tagging their posts, Wordpress has a built in tag feature on the post pages since version 2.3.

From Wordpress 2.5 upwards, you simply enter your tags or keywords (separate the tags with commas) into the ‘Tags’ area beneath your ‘Post’ area and press the ‘Add’ button.

Don’t underestimate the power of adding tags to your post!

What are tags you ask? You can look at tags as labels or keywords to help identify your post within your blog. Tags help people searching your blog find what they’re looking for with greater ease. The use of tags on your blog posts also help your blog visibility on sites such as Technorati.

As the Technorati folk themselves say

Tags are labels that people use to make it easier to find blog posts, photos and videos that are related.

As with everyone I work with on a blogging level, if you’re adding tags to your post to help connect posts on your blog, why not register yourself for free on Technorati. It takes just a few minutes, doesn’t cost you anything and you might find you’ve got a new source for traffic for your blog rather quickly.

Popularity: 9% [?]

On Saturday last I passed a significant milestone. I had reached the three year mark in business for myself.

I say “milestone” as that what it really was. Before forming the actual business and getting our first client under our belts we had laid out a three year plan. Everything was done with a three year mindset. Now, those three years have passed, though no plan exists at present for year four to year six.

I think this comes down to the evolution of the web business, the way the current industry and market is working (everyone keeps talking up “the recession”), technologies changing, service requirements changing. Sure enough, the original plan altered over the course of the three years to date but ultimately all goals were met.

Financially, things became stable. We hired our first employee. We lost our first employee (after a fantastic 18 months). We enhanced our complimentary services. We networked. We picked up and continue to work with great clients. We lost a client along the way. Plenty of lessons were learned. But we continue to evolve, continue to grow and continue to enhance the services on offer.

Walking out the college doors a few years ago with degrees in hand, I don’t think I would have envisaged running a business quite so early in in post-college life. When all of your friends and close contacts are taking off to Australia, the US, doing some travel, seeing the world, you’re sitting up at 3am revising business plans, projected figures, meeting with the local Enterprise Board, revising more figures, getting lists of products and services ready, defining your business practices… the list goes on.

One thing is for certain though, I wouldn’t change it for anything in the world and would recommend it to anyone. Even knowing that you’re facing into late sleepless nights, changes to your diet, changes to the way your body and mind functions - but the rewards are massive as only you can reap the benefits have done all the work yourself.

So here’s to the past three years and onwards to three more years, no doubt packed with more twists and turns than one could imagine.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Allow me to start by saying it is important to make time for your own projects.

I’m one of “those people” who have to have a dozen small projects on the go. I’ve always felt that the best way to build your portfolio, enhance your experience and understanding of a particular topic or area is to actually do something in that area.

Case in point, as I may have mentioned before, with American football. My knowledge on the sport was extremely limited, restricted to those moments you find yourself in front of a Playstation or somebody handing you a rare copy of First Down (newspaper). I had a desire to learn more and more about the sport, the rules, the day-to-day runnings, so I start a blog on it. Gradually, through reading, time, making posts, I find myself with a much greater understanding and appreciation for the sport.

But, you won’t know if these projects and ideas you have are going to work unless you try them. So I encourage you, make time for your own projects, especially if you’re working in an online or design environment and especially where you need something of substance in your portfolio in order to attract more work.

It can be difficult at times, especially when you are so focused on your client’s needs and concentrating on the actual business side of things. However, I’ve had as much joy in generating leads, picking up referrals and generating new business off side projects and sample projects that I’ve launched as much as I have from working with regular clients.

Ultimately, you’re the end user, you’re the one making the spec, making the build, designing the brief and you’ve only yourself to please. If you can get that right, you open the door to so much more opportunity.

If it doesn’t work, at least it hasn’t cost you anything. As for me, I’ve got another few projects in the pipeline that have been grabbing my attention of late. All will be revealed in due time.

Popularity: 11% [?]

I’m working on some Wordpress themes for friends and new clients at the moment and it’s always nice to have a little bit of inspiration in your day.

While the designs I’m working on have been well and truly settled, here’s a list of 25 Outstanding Wordpress Designs from Jacob & Co. at Six Revisions.

People continue to be amazed at the flexibility of the Wordpress design process and after viewing some of the themes on offer in the list I think you’ll see why!

If you’ve got a custom design you would like to showcase, why not drop me a line.

Popularity: 12% [?]

An email from Ilise Benun wings its way to me this morning with a reminder that the early-bird deadline for the Creative Freelancer Conference (which I’ve mentioned before) at the end of August, is tomorrow.

If you’re considering going to the conference which runs in Chicago from August 27-29, you can save $60 off the price of your ticket if you order by tomorrow!

See my previous post here.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Just a thought, but is there something in the summer air that causes the number of leads and phone calls looking for work to increase in the summer months?

We’re in the second month of my summer period (I would count June through to August as the summer) and I’ve found the number of people looking for my services on the increase, something which I hadn’t noticed before and something which doesn’t seem to follow the trend of my professional work (as opposed to freelance work).

Working as a full time freelancer, can you see or say that your work is seasonal? Would you find yourself inundated during the summer months yet clawing for work in the winter months?

Popularity: 15% [?]

If there’s something I’ve learned about invoicing over the years, especially when working with small groups, bands or projects where jobs tend to build up over time is this - break down the invoicing.

I’ll often have mails or calls from people asking for figures “off the top of your head” or the traditional “ball park” figure. Sometimes when people see or hear those figures they become alarmed or question why the response they receive.

However, when shown a full breakdown and itemised invoice for tasks completed they soon realise what is at hand.

If you’re starting out working for yourself and getting around to issuing your first set of invoices to a client - be thorough.

Instead of charging for “web development”, can you outline what went into it and break down once off and recurring costs? Domain registration, hosting, email, phone calls, travel expenses, design, build, commercial additions?

Did you incur any additional costs along the way directly related to the project?

If anything

• It helps you understand and visualise the financial cost of the project
• It helps your client understand and appreciate the cost of the project

It also gives you a good grounding for the future when it comes to billing for different elements of a project. So if you’ve been one of those people who throw out bulk figures on a job, why not take a minute to break down the cost and reap the benefits later.

Popularity: 18% [?]

I’m still loving Freshbooks, the online accounts / invoice / time tracking solution that’s saving me a good bit of time this week when it comes to invoicing.

Having toyed around with the free version for long enough, I’ve decided that I can divert some of my monthly advertising revenues from other blogs (namely those sporting Text Link Ads) to cover the small sum of $14 per month to allow me increase my client count online.

The free version of Freshbooks limits you to three clients while the entry level solution at $14 expands that to 25 clients. As it happens the three clients I had been storing in Freshbooks for the past few months are all quite active this month along with new clients I’ve picked up of late so rather than deleting existing ones I’ve opted to upgrade to the entry level account.

Of course, there are options available for everyone whether you’ve got up to 25 clients or 5,000 and counting. For ease of invoicing, providing quotes and estimates for work and keeping track of revenue generated from freelancing during the year I’m glad I made the choice to go with Freshbooks.

If you want to try it for yourself, you can sign up here for free (free up to 3 clients).

Popularity: 23% [?]

I’ve long proclaimed I’m a music junkie. Through school age, music was everywhere. Through college, I couldn’t study without music by my side. When I opened the doors of my office over three years ago the only sounds you could hear were coming from Air’s ‘Talkie Walkie“>Talkie Walkie‘ album which saw me through my first two client products.

Of course, musical choice will be dictated by the type of project I’m working on and the time of day or night I’m working on it.

Day time music I tend to jump anywhere from Air to Bruce Springsteen to Newton Faulkner to The Killers. One of my favourite night time pieces of listening for those coding and design projects that take you into the wee hours would be the soundtrack to The Animatrix movie, a great collection of downtempo and off-kilter dance tracks. I’m also known to dabble in a little Yann Tiersen or Michael Giacchino

I’ve worked in places where the only thing to listen to was the local radio or the nagging afternoon agony aunt. Another perk of working for yourself, minor as it may seem, is being able to dictate the music on offer, especially if it such a vital part of your day.

The musician in me also keeps a guitar near my workspace. When Winamp, iTunes or Last.fm just aren’t doing the trick or I’ve hit a rut, I’ll use a guitar to work out kinks in a project. I’ll often take five minutes out to play through a tune, think over the current obstacle and return with a music-based solution.

I know well that music boosts my productivity. I get more done. I can manage more tasks. I’m more at ease with my day. I’m less likely to get bogged down in a project as the music “keeps me going”. How about you?

Popularity: 20% [?]

“Can you do a mockup for me?”

“Can you do a template design for me?”

“Why can’t I click anything in this? What did you send me?”

If you’ve ever had the first two questions thrown at you as a web designer, it is quite possible you’ve also had the third question fired at you as well.

I read a post from Verne Ho at Creative Briefing a few weeks ago in relation to managing mockups. Depending on the client, and the delivery (am I delivering a strict skin/template in Photoshop or do I need to make up a html/css bundle), my preference has been to develop in Photoshop and like Verne, export as a high quality JPG for approval.

However, in more recent projects I’ve found myself skipping photoshop altogether and going straight to designing through html/css.

Verne posed the question “how do you manage mockups?”. I now manage mockups by going straight to the build. Particularly if I’m doing any Wordpress development work. It is becoming increasingly easier for me to progress through Wordpress template development and while it is nice to start out in Photoshop and look pretty in a bitmap environment I, much like my client, would rather see something working.

So rather than deliver a flattened JPG file dumped from Photoshop, I prefer to deliver some class of interactive template design - working links, browser-safe colours, web page look and feel. I find that it also gives the sense you’re getting value for your time or money when at an early stage you can get the grasp of how something actually looks as opposed to how something might look when rendered in a browser.

Does the more interactive you get mean your mockup is no longer a mockup? Was it every a mockup to begin with?

Popularity: 20% [?]